


The Lestellum Gig

by littlemiss_m



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Running Away, Self-Esteem Issues, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 19:58:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18835705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemiss_m/pseuds/littlemiss_m
Summary: When Prompto Argentum resigns from Crownsguard service and leaves the city without a word to anyone, Cor is tasked with bringing him back home.





	The Lestellum Gig

The motel is old and shabby, but neither dirty nor shady in the way the general populace would perceive as suspicious. One of the lights on the neon sign is out and the paint has peeled off in large patches, and the lone flowerpot near the shadowed awning appears a single watering away from perishing under the hot Lestellum sun.

It's a good place for hiding, but Cor doesn't know Argentum well enough to draw any conclusions on the kid's state of mind, never mind his train of thought. Argentum is running, and in Cor's experience running is nearly always equivalent to hiding, but there's no saying if Argentum actually knows how to hide, or if he has simply decided that distance alone is enough of a buffer to do whatever it is the kid is after. He left willingly, as much as certain; one morning, one of the office staff found a resignation notice and all of Argentum's weapons and keys on her desk. His clothes and all other items assigned to him by the Crownsguard were folded neatly into his locker, and his apartment, when they'd rushed it a few hours and several dozen phone calls later, had been empty and already listed on a renting website.

So he's running, but they don't know why, and _that's_ the big question, really. Cor knows Argentum is in Lestellum, because that's where his sources have placed the kid, and one week is hardly enough time to skip any further when you're barely twenty years old and have no knowledge of the world outside the stone boundary between Insomnia and all else. For two days, now, Cor has been scoping out the city, slowly walking through streets and market squares in search of the young man whose sudden disappearance has left all of the Citadel reeling, because whatever the reason for Argentum's actions, the fact remains that he's so close to the royal family they can't take the risk of him having been an enemy combatant in disguise.

On the prince's order, Cor is to find Argentum and bring him home. The King's orders are the same, but not for entirely the same reasons.

The air inside the motel is dusty, unmoving, but it's nevertheless a few degrees cooler than the oppressive heat on the streets, and Cor doesn't try to hold back the relieved sigh building up in his lungs. The man behind the the desk glances up at him, nods, then returns to whatever papers he'd been scribbling on when Cor entered the room. There are no other people in the small entrance, just the two of them and a vending machine humming loudly in the corner.

The man looks up when Cor slaps his Crownsguard ID on the desk between the till and the papers.

”Did that old man call again?” he groans, ”I swear to fucking Ifrit we've been quiet as the damn graveyard–”

Ignoring him, Cor shoves his phone forward. Even in a photograph, Argentum's eager grin is so bright it threatens to blank out the screen.

”Seen this guy?”

The man squints at the phone, doesn't quite shrug or shake his head, but Cor can see him wanting to. ”Ain't no Niff trash here,” he says, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the sign Cor has been ignoring until now. ”What's the kid do?”

Instead of answering, Cor takes back his phone and slides a finger across the screen. ”Seen him?” he repeats, more forcefully this time, as a short clip of Argentum talking about something or other fills the screen. He's emotive, full of cheery anxiety, his hands flying around. His voice breaks where it doesn't stutter.

The man sucks in an annoyed breath but turns back to the screen all the same. It's mere seconds later that Cor sees recognition hit.

”Yeah, shit, that's the kid in room four.” The man looks up at him, both nervous and disgusted all at once. ”Didn't know he was–”

”Is he in?”

”Shit, no, left as soon as the sun was up. What's he–”

”Take me to his room.”

The man pulls back with a grimace. ”Look, I really didn't know he was a bad guy, okay, I don't want no trouble–”

”Take me to his room,” Cor says, slow and enunciated, irritation rising swiftly. ”And remove that fucking sign before I have you arrested for hate speech.”

”Look–”

” _Take – down – that – sign_ ,” Cor repeats, ” _and take me to his room_.”

The man growls and turns around. ”I don't want any fucking _criminals_ in my motel anyways,” he spats out while tearing off the sign, ”fucking _scum_ –”

The heat alone has Cor at the end of his patience, and arguing with the man is literally the last thing on his mind right now. He knows the sign will be back up as soon as he's out of the building – wouldn't be surprised to see it return before he leaves – but he's too done to care, too angry at Argentum to give a shit about some crummy old motel keeper. It's _inconceivable_ to him that the kid would just pack up his bags and leave with hardly a single letter of goodbye, because Cor has known of Argentum for far longer than he has known him, and he hates it with his entire being when people he considers good pull shit like this. It pisses him off that one of the best trainees he's had in a few years would do this, that the prince's best friend would do this, that someone they've considered loyal and trustworthy would do this, but most of all, Cor is mad because they have no reason for anything.

(The letter was left in Noctis' apartment, along with a cardboard box containing several years' worth of pictures – ”it's all the copies I have of you guys, I swear!” – of the prince and his retinue. Argentum's copy of the apartment key was on top of the letter, next to his phone. The letter offered no clues, only apologies.)

The man gets the keys and Cor makes him stand at the bottom of the staircase until he's done choosing a drink from the vending machine. The bottle sweats in his hold and every couple steps, Cor has to wipe his palms dry on his shirt or risk dropping the soda. It's not quite as cold as he'd like, but once he's in Argentum's hotel room and under the hot sunlight spilling in from the windows hardly covered by the blinds twisted as tightly shut as possible, the chill in his fingers is as good as a blessing from Shiva herself.

”You will not speak a single word to him,” Cor tells the man, then stares down on him until he scuttles out of the room and closes the door.

Cor thinks of the apologies, of the photographs, of the suddenness of it all. He thinks of Argentum and tries to make sense of the puzzle before him, but the room offers him no more clues than he had before entering it, and in the end, all he can do is sit down to wait.

* * *

It's hours later that Argentum returns. Cor has finished his soda and filled the bottle with cool tapwater twice more, and he's debating the third refill when he hears a key scrape at the lock. Seated in a corner, he has the perfect view of a young man of medium-brown hair stumbling into the room, shirt damp around the collar and the armpits, face pallid with exhaustion. Argentum doesn't notice him; he simply walks in, one wrist wiping sweat from his forehead, and falls facedown on the bed.

Cor clears his throat and then Argentum's scrambling on the floor, panic evident on his face as he grasps at his chest with one hand and flails uselessly with the other.

Were the situation anything else, Cor would have laughed.

”Marshall!” Argentum squeaks, ”sir– oh Astrals, _Astrals-you-scared-me_ –”

At first, Cor simply means to give the kid a chance to catch his breath, but as seconds tick on and Argentum remains sprawled on the floor, no longer startled but still _scared_ , the plan begins to change shape. He doesn't know how to ask what he's supposed to ask – if there's something wrong, if there's something dangerous involved, if Argentum simply needed a way out of his own life – so he doesn't, instead choosing to trust the inevitability of passing time. Cor has patience; Argentum, though occasionally stubborn and steadfast, stands no chance against him.

It takes time. Cor remains silent, sits in the chair in the corner that gives him a view of the entire hotel room and twirls the empty bottle between his palms. He sees Argentum's heaving chest settle, then start to tremble as the kid unravels like a fraying piece of knitwork.

”What – what are you doing here,” he asks, eventually, finally, still sprawled on the floor but slowly gathering his gangly legs under himself, ”sir–”

Cor twists open the bottle. ”I was rather hoping you could tell me that, Argentum,” he says. With a flick of his wrist, the plastic cork screws shut. ”Bit of a stunt you've gone and pulled, huh?”

Argentum won't meet his eyes anymore, not even for the flicker of a glance like Cor is long since used to. ”I don't–” he murmurs, mouth a thin, white line on a flushed face, ”I turned in all my weapons and keys, sir, and all the pictures I had of Noct, and I _know_ my word probably won't mean much but–”

He falls silent the second Cor makes to raise his palm. ”If you could start with the _why_ of it,” Cor says, slow and deliberate because the other option is releasing all the air he's been holding onto since Argentum first spoke up, and he doesn't think blowing up in him would do any good.

”Well, I mean,” the kid splutters, eyes flicking this way and that without ever quite settling on Cor, ”I mean – why? I didn't do anything wrong, did I?”

Cor feels his face twitch. He has never liked it when people respond to his questions with queries of their own; it's a tactic frequently abused by obnoxious politicians and wanna-be-witty criminals who think themselves genius, which also happen to be the two groups of people he dislikes the most.

”Several members of the Council now suspect you of liaising with the enemy,” Cor says, not amused in the least. ”So tell me, Argentum – what the _fuck_ is going on with you.”

No-one quite agrees on the identity of said enemy, but the general concensus is nearly unanimous: the rich fucks can't see a _single_ reason why someone like Argentum would disappear if he wasn't involved in something highly suspect and at least partially treasonous. There is a reason Cor was the person chosen for this job, and it's not all because of how dearly both Noctis and Regis think of Argentum, or how badly the prince and his retinue have been reacting to the kid's sudden absence.

It takes another order – a little gentler, a little more restrained – before Argentum stops sounding like a broken laundry machine. ”Well it's not like I was any good at it, you know,” he blurts out eventually, visibly agitated. Cor raises an eyebrow, and Argentum's twisting, flailing hands pick up speed. ”I just – thought it'd be better if I went first, okay, because then it'd be less bad–”

He's not making any sense. ”Prompto.” Cor sets the empty soda bottle away and leans forward until his elbows rest on his knees. ”Why did you leave?”

Argentum gapes like a fish on dry land. ” _Because_ ,” he says, but then he clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head. ”Because.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Cor runs a palm across the clammy planes of his face and sighs. ”Are you collaborating with someone you know or suspect to be a threat to the Crown or the people of Lucis?” he asks, eyes locked on Argentum who shakes his head so fast it's a miracle he doesn't pass out. ”Are you planning on passing on the information you have gathered on the royal family, the Crownsguard, or the members of the Kingsglaive? Have you already done so?”

”It's not like that!” Argentum cries out as soon as Cor is done with the last syllable. He shifts around on the floor until he's sitting on his knees, one hand fisted into the tacky motel bed sheets and the other flexing against his thighs. ”I'm not – I just needed to go!”

Cor means to ask him why, but before he gets his mouth open, he sees Argentum's face twist into the tell-tale grimace of a person about to break out in sobs, and soon enough there are fat droplets rolling down a pair of reddened cheeks. Argentum tries to hide it at first by rubbing at his eyes almost furiously, breath hitching in his throat, but it's all futile; the dams are already broken.

Chin tucked to his chest, Argentum curls up against the foot of the bed and cries in such a heart-breaking fashion that Cor can't bear to look at him.

It goes like that for a while; Argentum crying and Cor staring at the cracked popcorn ceiling covered in suspicious stains. Every now and then, the kid tries to stutter something between the sobs and the snotty sounds of him choking on nothing, but the half-finished syllables do little to explain the story behind this all. Cor thinks of the explanations Argentum gave him moments earlier, the self-deprecation, the way he'd simply left without warning anyone, and thinks he can see something down the road but decides he'd much rather remain blind for the time being.

Argentum cries. Cor stands up and walks past the kid, ignores the startled, hysterical shriek, and grabs a cup from the nightstand. He fills it at the bathroom sink and holds onto the red plastic until Argentum takes it from him.

Still silent, he drags the wooden chair a little closer to the bed and drops down on it.

”Prompto,” Cor sighs. ”Prompto. _Why_ did you resign?”

The cries have quieted down to sniffles, now, but Argentum takes his time in answering and Cor allows it. He holds the cup against his mouth but hardly sips at it, and his eyes – rimmed red under the mess of the brown bangs threatening to hide them – appear almost devoid of all life as they gaze at nothing.

”I just thought it'd be better if it was me,” Argentum murmurs, eventually, still not making much sense, but he's talking and so Cor doesn't intervene, ”I mean – it's still _dumb_ , but you were gonna kick me out anyways – not you-you but you like _all_ of you I mean – I mean – I just thought it'd be less embarrassing this way, okay? For Noct and the others. 'Cause it would've looked bad on him if I'd gotten kicked out–”

”Did someone tell you you were performing substandardly?”

Argentum pauses. If the Lestellum sun hadn't already succeeded at bringing a throbbing pain to the back of Cor's skull, then the rambly mess of an explanation he'd just listened to would've done the trick in its place.

”Well, no,” the kid says, ”not directly, but like – it's not like I'm any _good_ at it, right? Any of it. I can tell as much myself. I know I can run better than most of the guys, but I'm shit at everything else, so. I just – it would've looked _bad_ on Noctis. I couldn't let that happen.”

He falls silent, but for the first time in many, many years, Cor finds himself rendered speechless.

”Are you saying,” he has to ask, ”that you quit Crownsguard training under the impression that–”

He can't even finish the sentence. Argentum squirms, shrugs, nods.

”I'm just – no good, okay?” His voice is barely louder than a whisper, yet it breaks anew. ”I know that. So – I'm sorry for not – telling anyone I was leaving, or whatever it was I did wrong, _Astrals_ I'm such a fuck-up – I'm sorry, but it really is better like this, don't you see? I shouldn't – I shouldn't have made friends with Noct in the first place, I was always gonna drag him down–”

He's crying again, and Cor is still speechless. His knees creak when he lowers himself down on the floor, but he hardly notices, too busy wondering how Argentum passed his psych evals in the first place – they had known about the anxiety from the beginning, Cor remembers reading about it when the kids were in high school still, but this – this is something else, entirely, something he is in no way prepared for.

Heart aching for the boy before him, Cor shuffles forward. ”Hey,” he murmurs, ”look at me. Look at me.”

Argentum does, but not for long.

”You're one of the best trainees I've seen in years,” Cor says, voice as soft as he can muster. Argentum included, he's had nine or ten trainees good enough to warrant his actual attention, his mentorship, but he doubts the kid would believe him is he just laid it all out. ”All the other teachers you've had agree on it. No-one starts training perfect at every skill, and no-one ends training with perfect grades, but some come really damn close to that. That's you, Prompto. You have the potential to become one of my best men. Everyone who has observed you in training has acknowledged your skills.”

Even as he speaks, Argentum keeps on shaking his head. There's a patch of blond hair behind his left ear, a mistake Cor didn't notice until now, and for some reason, he feels his heart ache over the sight of it. All this, and for what? He can see the logic in Argentum's actions, but not the reason, and it's just – too much, really. The heat of the room is oppressive and has his head swimming, the last bottle of water is beginning to press on his bladder in a very uncomfortable fashion, and Cor just can't understand.

”Why did you leave like that?” he asks, when Argentum won't speak up. ” _Surely_ you must have known what it would look like.”

It took half a day for Cor to make his way to Lestellum after he received word of Argentum having entered the city; he spent that half a day wondering if he's walk into a hotel room just to find a corpse. Back in Insomnia, once they'd found the photographs at Noctis' apartment and the emptied rooms where Argentum should've been waiting, they had ordered a city-wide search including a team of divers to rake out the rivers and ponds.

Argentum shrugs and Cor feels his rage threaten to boil over. He had known, and still–

”It's still better like this,” he murmurs. The red cup shakes in his hands, but there's no longer enough water in it for any to spill over. ”I promise I won't be of any problem, so you can just – go, sir. That's why I left all the pictures with Noct, because–”

”Don't you care about your friends at all?”

The words give Argentum pause. He stalls mid-sentence, looks up at Cor from under eyelashes still thick with drying salt, and when he finally speaks up, it leaves Cor shaking his head.

”But that's why I left,” he says, not faltering, not nervous – just completely, entirely sure that his friends would be happier thinking him dead. ”Because it's not – right, for me to be there.”

Cor can't understand where the fuck the words are coming from. As far as he knows, it was Argentum who first approached the prince in high school, and Argentum who fought tooth and nail to insert himself in Noctis' life. For a brief moment, Cor thinks of the motel keeper and the sign on the wall, the Niff District back home and the occasional xenophobe he knows Argentum must have encountered on a weekly basis if not more often, but – that's not enough to explain anything, not when he's witnessed the kid shrug off sneers and bullies with hardly a wince on his face.

”They're worried for you.” Cor doubts Argentum will listen but he needs to try all the same, because he simply isn't equipped to deal with someone three seconds away from a mental breakdown. ”All of them. Noctis, Ignis, Gladio. Ifrit's shit, Regis and Clarus are worried! Your classmates have been asking after you, your teachers are wondering what the fuck went wrong. Everyone is worried for you, and you're so fucking self-conceited you somehow think this is better than, what? Failing at training? You weren't failing, Prompto! You were on your way to the top of your class, and now you've gone and thrown it all away!”

In hindsight, yelling at the kid probably isn't the wisest way of dealing with him, but Cor can't quell the red-hot anger he's fought for nine full days, now, and so he spits out words he should regret but will nevertheless defend till the day of his last breath. Argentum starts crying before he's halfway done with the words, and by the time Cor is finished, the kid is sobbing with his head tossed back against the bed. The wails are loud and long, only broken when he runs out of air and chokes on spittle, and Cor can't understand. He can't understand.

”Prompto,” he says – pleads – while scooting forward on his knees until he can cup the side of Argentum's face with a sweaty palm, ”Prompto, kid – is this – is this an anxiety thing? Is that what this is?”

Argentum laughs, then, and shakes Cor's hand away, but he's still crying too hard to speak up. There's an attempt at it, sure, but the first word alone is a series of hitching syllables repeating over and over again, and as a result, he simply sobs harder, louder. He's beginning to grow purple in face, the red fading away, and Cor – who doesn't know what to do with people falling apart for reasons other than shellshock – shuffles around until he's sitting right next to Argentum, their knees and elbows touching.

He'll need to take the kid home, even if said kid no longer has one. It's a big fucking mess even without Argentum falling apart and in a way, Cor is glad it won't be him stuck with the job of fixing it all; there will be psych evals, even if Argentum doesn't return to training, because what is going on right now is in no way healthy or normal, and then there will be the boys.

Ignis can restrain himself. Gladio is a toss-up between his training and his fierce emotions, but Noctis – Cor almost wants to call ahead, to tell Regis to ship Noctis elsewhere for a week or two, but he knows both that the prince would never agree to it and that the distance wouldn't make a difference anyways.

It takes minutes before Argentum's cries quiet down. His face is white where it's not red with drying tears, and the slump of his body screams exhaustion both mental and physical. Cor eyes him for a while, careful and calculating, but the question has been burning at the back of his mind for so long now that he can no longer ignore it.

”Did you even want to join the Crownsguard?”

Argentum starts. ”I... was told I'd be good at it,” he says, after a while, and Cor closes his eyes. ”And I didn't want to give up Noct.”

There are things Cor could say, and things he should say. He does neither. Instead, he opens his eyes against the haze of the bright Lestellum sun still shining through the misshapen blinds and stares at the spots of light dancing on the dirty carpet, listens to the quiet sniffles that no longer signify tears.

”I'll be taking you back to Insomnia tomorrow,” he says, and then hurries to add, ”and if you say one more word about not being worthy of your friends, then I'll tell them exactly how little you think of their friendship with you.”

Cor doesn't know if the threat is successful or not, but next to him, Argentum pulls up his knees and curls around them. ”Yeah,” he sighs, his voice wet and rough after the long round of screaming and sobbing. ”Yeah.” A long, long pause, and then, a question so quiet Cor would miss it if he weren't already listening. ”Am I in trouble?”

The King's Council will expect a full report, which means there will be a full investigation, but – Cor glances sideways at Argentum and knows that one psych eval is all it will take to explain what really went down, and so he keeps silent. It's likely there will be new rules imposed, at least at first, and possibly even a temporary ban on interaction between Noctis and Argentum, but Cor doesn't mention that either.

”No, kid,” he sighs, in the end, ”you're not.”


End file.
